About Us

WineActually has been founded in Malaysia based on the following core founding principles:

• We believe wines should be enjoyed regardless of fashion and fad.
• Why let a herd of sheep determine what you should be drinking? Trust your palate.
• The best form of wine education is in its practical form and that involves drinking more wines (responsibly).

Lastly and most importantly, wine is about fun and enjoyment with food, family and friends.

WineActually TV

WineActually TV was started to allow us a space to keep a log of (almost) all the wines we have tasted on our path of discovery of our own palate. We realised that a lot of wine drinkers go down the path of relying on others to determine whether a wine is good or bad.

While we trust that wine critics provide an objective view of a wine, we cannot stress how important it is for everyone to trust their own tastes. We hope that through WineActually TV, people (winemakers, importers, retailers, connoisseurs) can discover more about us Malaysians and SouthEast Asians’ palates and likes.

While we set off on this wonderful journey, it is very important to us that each of you viewers provide your valuable opinions. We accept any opinions no matter good or bad as we seek to improve with your help.

We also strongly encourage anybody with a passion in wine (or anything in fact) to start a similar type of blog. Remember to tell us so we could link you guys and girls up.

Founders
WineActually was founded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia by Wilson Quah and Shaun Lee, two ex-London finance professionals turn wine enthusiasts.

Shaun Lee
Shaun is proud to be a Penangite (though he’s never actually lived there for more than a month) and proud to have grown up in Petaling Jaya (though he had no PJ friends as he went to school in KL).

The first time he tasted wine was when he was nine at Club Med Cherating. He believes it must have been cheap French table wine given it was Club Med though he can’t be sure. Since then, Shaun has always been secretly fascinated with wine. He can’t get over the fact how adding some grapes, some yeast, some wood and a little time can yield such fascinating flavours.

However, he only openly declared his love for wine in 2009 when he was about to quit his stable London job to pursue his entrepreneurial ambitions back home in Asia.

A Chartered Accountant by training, he cannot survive without a calculator, a sprinkle of Felicia, a dash of tennis, a bit of running, some doggy love (keep it clean please) and a warm serving of family and friends.

Shaun holds the Advanced WSET certificate after completing it in July 2010

Favourite red: Chilean Carmenere blends
Favourite white: Sancerres
Favourite region: Saint-Emilion, Bordeaux. Simply because it is so darn beautiful.

Wilson J Q Quah
Wilson is born a Kedahan and is still a Kedahan through and through. He spent his most of his life studying in Alor Star and only came to KL after secondary school.

The first bottle of wine he tasted was a 1998 Chateau Magnol which he found lying around in his storeroom during his 16th birthday. With no sense of how to drink wine, he and his friends drank this out of the bottle. That was when he first figured it out, wines are supposed to be enjoyed with family and friends.

Fast forward into the future, with many a bottles with friends in the UK (and many Counter Strike + Wine sessions), he came back to the country without any idea of his future after being laid off from his stock analyst job. With many brainstorming sessions for ideas, he met Shaun randomly at Starbucks where incidentally they shared a common idea – to take wine online.

He was introduced to WinelibraryTV by Shaun and has been a Vayniac ever since, learning more and more about wine than he used to care about. Outside wine, he loves his family most and as time of writing, he is awaiting for dates to take his WSET Intermediate certification exam.

Favourite red: Pinot Noir (Currently no doubt)
Favourite white: Gewurztraminer (Yes it’s like drinking perfume)
Favourite region: Klang Valley (who said it has to produce wines?)